From its very onset Israel has constructed a brand for itself a powerful gimmick that was predicated on two main pillars: democracy and stability.
The main target audience for this brand has been powerful Western states that wielded disproportionate political economic and military powers.
These Western governments along with their influential mainstream corporate media did their part by polishing Israel’s image &ndash as most democratic and most stable &ndash while tarnishing that of their Arab and Palestinian enemies &ndash or anyone else who dared criticize Israel.
It mattered little whether Israel was truly a beacon of democracy and stability because these terms are often conjured up and used to conveniently fit the interest of those in power.
To maintain the charade Israel’s task was fairly straightforward: conveying a façade of democracy at home &ndash even if this democracy is racially-oriented and exclusionist &ndash and providing enough &lsquostability&rsquo to allow foreign companies to trust that their investments in Israel are safe.
Actual verifiable truth in these kinds of situations is hardly relevant. All that matters are slogans and clichés &ndash and enough people in power who are willing to repeat those slogans and even believe in the clichés.
Over the years Israel thus emerged as the &ldquoonly democracy in the Middle East&rdquo and an &ldquooasis of freedom and stability&rdquo that is protected by &ldquothe most moral army in the world&rdquo and so on.
But this pseudo-reality can only exist in relative terms for Israel to be elevated the Arabs had to be tarnished and demeaned despite the fact that it was Israel that illegally occupied Arab land and waged repeated wars on Palestinians and other Arab nations.
The perfect illustration until recently of the successful Israel model is a statement made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 13 September 2012 almost precisely 11 years ago.
Toasting top military commanders at the Israeli Army General Staff Forum on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah Netanyahu summed up Israel’s sense of triumphalism in a few words.
&ldquoWe live in a volatile and stormy region. Its explosions and storms are increasing. The strength of the IDF has helped ensure that we remain an island of stability amidst the storms&rdquo Netanyahu said.
Two facts may have escaped Netanyahu back then. One that much of the &ldquoexplosions and storms&rdquo in the modern history of the Middle East were outcomes of Israel’s own doing &ndash military invasions occupation and other destabilizing factors.
And two in the words of Heraclitus: &ldquoThe only constant in life is change.&rdquo
11 years after that declaration Israel is now learning that it is no longer isolated from the &ldquovolatile and stormy region&rdquo.
It is important to underscore that the long-perceived Middle Eastern &lsquochaos&rsquo as juxtaposed with Israel’s &lsquostability&rsquo are not inherent values in history.
The Middle East &ndash in fact much of the Global South &ndash has remained victim to former Western colonial powers for many decades.
Rarely a coup a revolution a political crisis or an economic collapse experienced in that part of the world has taken place without Western involvement direct or otherwise.
Arabs the architects of one of the greatest and longest-lasting civilizations in human history are not innately &lsquochaotic&rsquo as Israel and its Western benefactors maintained through their relentless propaganda.
Such a conversation is now outdated anyway as Israel itself now epitomizes political instability and social chaos.
A viral video dated 7 September showed dozens of Israeli soldiers from the &lsquoelite&rsquo Golani Brigade destroying their own military base.
The leaked video could be dismissed as an isolated incident if it were not for the fact that at least 10000 Israeli army reservists have declared that they will not join their military units if Netanyahu’s judicial reforms are confirmed.
Thousands have already refrained from returning to the army and the number is in constant increase while hundreds of thousands of Israelis continue to occupy the major squares of all Israeli cities demanding an end to what they perceive as a far-right coup.
Israeli military analysts and highly-regarded journalists are engaging in political and moral questions that would have been only a few years ago considered unconceivable: what if the army turns against the people? What if the people overthrow the government? What if Israel is no longer a democracy?
In fact many already agreed that the latter scenario has already actualized.
They include two former heads of Israel’s powerful internal security service the Shin Bet. In a letter made public on 31 August they urged US President Joe Biden not to meet Netanyahu.
Such a visit would be seen as &ldquolegitimizing the government coup&rdquo they wrote accusing the Israeli leader of &ldquocausing severe damage&rdquo to Israel particularly the &ldquostrategic relationship between the US and Israel.&rdquo
The task of marketing Israel as &ldquothe only democracy in the Middle East&rdquo is no longer an easy sell.
With the &lsquodemocracy&rsquo pillar crumbling the &lsquostability&rsquo pillar is falling apart as well. And without stability investors simply run away.
The rush to escape the Israeli market has already begun. The flight of capital by Israel’s own estimation is so extreme it took many market analysts by surprise.
The first three months of foreign investments in Israel was a meagre $2.6 billion a drop of 60 per cent compared to the years 2020 and 2022 according to a recent report issued by Israel’s Finance Ministry which excluded 2021.
Certainly what is taking place in &lsquodemocratic&rsquo and &lsquostable&rsquo Israel is truly unprecedented.
Israel’s current vulnerability is accentuated by the massive and rapid changes to the political map of the Middle East and the world. As the US-Western stronghold on the region and other parts of the world weakens Israel’s once powerful geopolitical position is growingly compromised.
This should present Palestinians with the opportunity of exposing Israel’s losing brands &ndash that of false democracy social instability and outright apartheid.
Israel must now be pressured to acquiesce to international law which guarantees in principle justice and freedom for the Palestinian people and the inalienable &lsquoRight of Return&rsquo for their refugees.
Without Palestinian freedom Israel’s future is sealed as that of an unstable country with undemocratic institutions permanent apartheid and indeed perpetual chaos.
